The world premiere was simply magical. It truly was a dream seeing so many people connected with the film come together to celebrate deaf entertainers. It was worth the wait to have it in Hollywood and was the perfect fit. I'm still putting together photos, stories and our glowing reviews while at the Laemmle Sunset 5 this week. I decided to be there all week to personally greet every audience and be available for questions after each screening. Folks are driving down from as far away as Arizona to see us at the Laemmle Sunset 5 and celebrate the first open captioned commercial film in American history.

Here is some of our fan mail. Re-posted with permission.

Sent: Fri, Mar 19, 2010 3:38 pm
Subject: The Premiere Was AWESOME!!

Hi Hilari,

I met you at an event featuring documentary film editors a few months ago. We were sitting next to each other and chatted, exchanged cards, etc.. Well I joined your mailing list and I went to the premiere of See What I'm Saying last night and HOLY COW, was I blown away. I studied Hearing and Deafness in college as my minor, worked at a Deaf/Blind center, and took ASL so obviously I enjoyed the film. What I really want to point out is that I brought my boyfriend along with me who has never even met a Deaf person before, and knows next to nothing about Deaf Culture. Not only did I enjoy the film, but HE was also completely blown away by it. I kept looking at him and he was laughing at the high parts and was so invested in the lows. He said the most interesting part for him was when Robert DeMayo was walking down the busy street and you could hear what the world sounded like from his perspective. We talked well into the night about many aspects of the film and what both of us learned, but he kept coming back to the point about beginning to see the world through the eyes of your four incredible main characters. I have to agree, the stories were so well developed. It's easy to make a great film like Avatar when you have a $50 million budget. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you weren't given millions of dollars and support from a major studio, and yet you produced a wonderful, quality film product that is accessible (physically and cross-culturally) to so many if people just buy the ticket. I've been encouraging many of my friends to go see the film, both those who have experience with Deaf culture and those who don't. I am just so glad that someone (YOU!) took such a huge chance in making this movie because even aside from the intriguing subject matter, it is simply this-- A GREAT FILM.

Thank you (and I really mean it-- Thank You),

Crystal

-- Crystal Riportella-Crose